


the cutting floor

by panoramic (worrylesswritemore)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Canon Fix-It, the trial of kylo ren, this is supposed to be the ben solo redemption arc we deserved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:01:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21979255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worrylesswritemore/pseuds/panoramic
Summary: At the Resistance base, exhausted technicians shudder with relief and sweat-soaked pilots grab for their loved ones.The war is over. They have won. Cheers. Laughter. Celebration.A bloodied Jedi hugs her friends tightly, and she dreams of rest in a restless galaxy.A dying war criminal lies in the base’s medbay, hooked up to neon fluids and murmuring machines, and he dreams of how his mother used to cut his hair.::TRoS Fix-It.Kylo Ren is dead—shattered in the wake of the battle at Exegol. Now Ben Solo has to scavenge through the pieces to remember the boy who slipped through the cracks.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 21
Kudos: 235





	the cutting floor

**Author's Note:**

> Ben Solo deserved better.
> 
> Saw a lot of TRoS fix-its on here and I thought I would give it my spin!
> 
> Also apologies if I got any lore or plot points wrong. I tried to triple-check myself but I'm not immune to error.

She cut his hair in the garden. Leia would plop him on the well-worn speeder seat she’d fashioned into a gardening stool, his face turned toward the vibrant petals and ripened fruit while she gazed down at the mop of black hair.

When he was younger, it took a lot of bartering (he was a smuggler’s son, after all) to convince Ben to sit still as she brought the shears near his scalp. He was a child possessed only by kinetic energy; the youngling would move his hands as he talked, wave his arms in the air as he collided toy spacecrafts into one another, tap his foot to a made-up melody echoing in his ears.

As he grew older, he was still restless—a bouncing knee, a sweeping gaze, a wandering mind. 

“Do I have to start promising you sweets again?” Leia asked airily.

The fourteen-year-old scowled—or, really, he was _already_ scowling, but it deepened at her words.

“You take forever,” he responded. “It’s not like you’re shaving a Bantha.”

Leia flicked a long strand in his eyes, “I would beg the contrary.”

Ben’s scowl twitched into a smile. 

She cut his sandwiches in her office. Diagonal. No crust. When Ben was younger, she didn’t trust anyone to watch him other than Luke or Han. And hell, even with those two, it depended on the day. So more often than not, Leia would fix his lunches as she endured the hot-headed tantrums of political con-men and argued strategy with begrudged allies. 

She cut his spite with one look. _Not now, Ben._ When he mouthed off to superiors. When he argued with his father. When he asked about Vader.

She cut his tension with a touch. A head on the shoulder. A palm against his back. A hand on his cheek.

His mother was a woodworker. She cut and shaped and sanded the men in her life to be as she wished them to: Luke, the altruistic brother; Han, the devoted husband; Ben, the dutiful son.

But they are not made of oak. They are made of gore and greed, of sinew and ego. They are men—and so, of course, they disappointed her. All of them.

At the Resistance base, exhausted technicians shudder with relief and sweat-soaked pilots grab for their loved ones. 

The war is over. They have won. Cheers. Laughter. Celebration. 

A bloodied Jedi hugs her friends tightly, and she dreams of rest in a restless galaxy.

A dying war criminal lies in the base’s medbay, hooked up to neon fluids and murmuring machines, and he dreams of how his mother used to cut his hair.

:: - ::

_Ben. Ren. Ben. Ren._

The identities bleed together, into both the before and after of his surrender to the dark side. Was he still Ben when he was fifteen, screaming at his parents and shattering the porcelain saucer in his mother’s hands with an abrupt wave of the Force? Was he still Ren when he turned the saber on his own master and saved the last Jedi?

Maybe he was Ben in the morning and Ren in the evening. Maybe it changed every hour, or maybe every minute. Maybe Snoke was right all this time and there was no difference between the two.

But the way _she_ said it...

_“Ben.”_

It was not a curse. It was not a mockery.

 _“Ben,”_ she said, and then he felt like Ben again. He didn’t know he lost that identity until it was flung back to him.

_“Ben.”_

He could have sworn he was thinking about his mother, but when his eyes finally open to a pale white room, Ben asks for Rey.

:: - ::

A medic drops something at the meek rise of his voice, and it clatters to the floor with a metallic thud. The noise feels catastrophic in the silent room, and it forces Ben’s eyes to widen and take in too much of the fluorescent lighting. 

Heavy footsteps skate to the other side. A comm-box fizzles with static before a woman speaks, hurried and panicked, “He’s awake. _Kylo Ren is awake_.”

Ben is awake, and he is on fire. His skin feels singed with Rey’s energy, residuals of the transference of her trauma to himself. She was dead, and he took it away, like it was nothing but an annoying wisp of hair across her cheek. _He_ should be dead, but the precise way his insides are being torn apart let him know he is very much alive. At least for the time being.

Ben looks toward the machinery at his sides, how their veins of foreign liquid are bleeding into his own through the incisions in his skin. To his far left, anchored by the door is the medic, wild-eyed and terrified. It takes him an embarrassingly belated moment to realize it’s _of_ him. The vision of Rey’s kind, forgiving eyes in the throne room are gone, replaced by the reality of a haunted gaze boring into him.

He should have died a hero. Now he has to live as a phantom.

The door bursts open to reveal two new faces. They are considerably less terrified than the medic’s but all the more troubled.

Surprising to no one, it’s Dameron who speaks first.

“Well, shit,” he says. “I guess you pulled through, after all.”

FN-2187 ( _Finn_ , his brain supplies) also looks just as surprised and displeased, brow furrowed and hand hovering over his belt loop for his blaster.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Ben responds, a weak shrug following. “Better get used to it.”

Where there are two, another usually follows. Ben tries to crane his neck to see past the men at the doorway but the action makes him hiss through his teeth in abrupt pain. Though he’s in obvious injury, Dameron and Finn tense, daring him to make the first move.

“Where’s the—” The girl. The scavenger. The Jedi. What is he to even call her now? Ben breaks off, collects himself, and starts again, “Where’s Rey?”

An iron curtain sweeps across Finn’s face. He doesn’t answer right away, giving a sideways glance to Dameron, and Ben’s skin suddenly feels stretched too thin. He searches through the Force, raking his mind over the endless coils of energy. When he doesn’t find her on the nearest planets, he expands his pursuit, even though the attempt makes the machines whistle fervently.

“Hey, what’s wrong with him?” He hears Dameron demand. 

She’s not at the base. She’s not on this planet. She’s not even in this goddamn system. 

And suddenly he’s not here either. He’s back in the throne room of false idols with a young god in his lap. Her eyes are glassy and mouth slack. Perhaps the transfer didn’t work. Maybe she really did...

 _No_ . Ben held her in his arms. He saw the flutter of eyelashes, the rise in her chest. It felt so real. It _had_ to be real.

The whistling grows louder, more urgent. The medic shouts something and suddenly there is a cocoon of people around him. Flashes of faces, but none of them hers.

**_Where are you?_ **

The thought rips out of his mind and broadcasts like a floodlight into the universe. Finn visibly jolts, and where her voice is silent, his speaks.

“She’s fine,” he says, and he seems as surprised as Ben when his voice carries a soothing undertone. “Rey’s okay.”

_She’s okay. She’s alive. She’s safe._

It’s a mantra that rings in his head until the tight fist loosens around his chest. The machine’s whistles slowly peeter back to normal.

Dameron barely gives him time to catch his breath. The metal chair makes a crude noise as it scrapes against the tiled floor. When he sits, he’s eye level with Ben and only a few feet from his face.

“According to her, it’s all thanks to you.” Dameron wears the face of a negotiator well. His voice is hard but inviting, slightly disapproving but still willing to hear your side. He has eyes that bounce relentlessly, trying to pick up every spasm of muscle. Ben waits for a question to punctuate his thought but Dameron lets it hang there.

“She was dead,” Ben tells him quietly. “I brought her back. Transferred my remaining life energy into her.”

“That’s not how the Force works,” he accuses but then looks to Finn, asking him in a lower voice. “Is it?”

Finn doesn’t seem to be too hung up on the logistics. He studies Ben’s face, but in the absence of cold calculation, there is curiosity. Finn looks at him like he’s curious—hesitant, sure, but curious nonetheless.

“Rey said you helped her,” Finn tells Ben. “At the end. During the battle.”

He nods.

Finn almost smiles, “Thank you.”

“A little back-up here, Buddy,” Dameron whispers to Finn under his breath. It seems like they had rehearsed the interrogation, but someone is going off-script. Ben bites back a laugh. FN-2187 not following orders? Who would have thought?

While Finn and Dameron have a silent debate with gestures and stares, Ben looks around the white room. Resistance badges are worn proudly on each lapel of the medic personnel. Their faces are tired and well-worn, but there is something in their eyes. Where was once a defiant flicker of hope in the Resistance, there is now one of unbridled ease.

“So you won,” Ben surmises blankly, his revelation halting Dameron and Finn’s charades.

“Yeah,” Dameron replies, after a beat, and even though he tries to appear neutral, a cocky smile ghosts his face, “We did.”

The war is over. Kylo Ren has lost.

Ben smiles. He grins unabashedly, so wide that it threatens to split open his face, “ _Thank you_.”

:: - :: 

They ask him a lot of questions. Who were the First Order’s allies? Are there any isolated hold-outs in the galaxy? How long did he know about Snoke and Palpatine?

Ben supplies answers. He draws maps. He makes lists. He tells stories that Dameron seems unconvinced by. 

The interrogation is long and intensive. Even the medic, still wide-eyed and pale-faced, tells Dameron that Ben needs to rest at one point, well into the early hours of the morning.

Dameron can’t seem to say _thank you_ , so he just nods and says curtly, “These will be helpful.”

“I hope so,” Ben replies but Dameron is already in the hallway, his mouth buried in his comm with murmured orders.

Finn lingers a little longer, “Don’t mind him. He’s still a little prickly about the whole ‘abducting him from that village and having your guys beat him to a pulp and then mentally extracting information from his subconscious against his will’ thing.”

“Really?” Ben remarks sarcastically. “I could have sworn we grew past that.”

Finn quirks a corner of his mouth before it melts back into a stoic expression. “Well, I gotta go check some perimeters,” he says, but given the almost comically wide yawn that escapes his mouth, Ben doubts he’s going to browse anything other than the perimeter of his quarters.

Just as he’s about to leave, Ben becomes weak. He stops him.

“If you won’t tell me where she is,” he says. “Will you at least tell me when she’s coming back?”

Finn finally smiles, but it’s a waning ghost, “Your guess is as good as mine, Ren.”

It’s on the cusp of daylight when Ben is left alone to his thoughts. The sickbay is quiet, save for the occasional overnight attendant’s footsteps echoing in the hallway. 

Most of the details he spouted about their battle with Palpatine didn’t seem to faze Dameron and Finn. Rey must have already told them everything already.

_Everything?_

Soft eyes. Calloused hands, reaching up to hold his cheek. Incredulous laughter and shaky smiles. Her lips falling forward to eclipse his own...

A machine roars to life with a spike of energy, and Ben blushes, chasing the memory away before an attendant thinks he’s going into cardiac arrest or something.

It was over in seconds, probably barely registering in her adrenaline-addled mind. The suggestion allows his heart-rate to return to normal, but he would be lying if he said it answered all of his questions.

He wishes he could talk to her—for the first time, as Ben and Rey. There are no battles to be won, no masters to bend to, no line drawn between them. He tries to call her now, to test how Palpatine has changed their bond, but his mind lacks an anchor and his eyes try to tumble every time he blinks.

 **Tomorrow,** Ben makes the promise to himself and to her, **I will find you then.**

The machines offer a lullaby that drifts him to the sandbanks of sleep. He lets the waves come and drag him off of the shore, his efforts to come up for breath lessening in frequency as he ventures further into the sea.

He’s almost submerged when he hears her, a rumbling burst of energy that speaks somewhere far away in the trenches of the horizon.

**_Ben?_ **

:: - ::

When he dreams, he dreams of her. She has been a phantom of sleep since he first met her gaze and sensed her power. 

At first, he dreamed of the dark woods, lit only by the glow of their sabers. He dreamed of striking her down, taking the saber, the map—everything. He was Kylo Ren, and she was a scavenger. Months later, he dreamed of the throne room on fire. He dreamed of two hands, guiding the galaxy into a new era, free from the shackles of legacies and ghosts. He was Supreme Leader, she was Empress. Now, he dreams of an ocean. He dreams of pruned fingertips on calloused skin, inside jokes whispered into salt-crusted hair. He is Ben, and she is Rey. 

Now that Ben is awake to accurately describe his pain, the medicine is altered and his results improve. His body still aches, but the sharp needles in his intestines fade with each passing day.

Nine of which have passed since he awoke. And still, Rey is only in his dreams.

Not even the Force Bond can penetrate wherever she is. Surely it must be the location that is messing with their communication. She wouldn’t purposefully shut him out. She _couldn’t_ —even when she hated him, they would meet one another at the intricate stitching of the universe. 

Ben can’t see her, but he can feel her, somewhere far, far away. And it kills him not knowing where she is, but at least he knows she’s safe. Well, still breathing, anyway. And that’s more than most heroes can ask for.

Luke briefly flickers in his memory before he shoves it out. He’s not strong enough to tackle that fight. Not now.

He doesn’t get visitors during his time in the sickbay, save for Dameron. The man looks tired every time he sees him, but his mind is always sharp, latching onto every detail Ben can give and pushing for more.

The first time someone calls him General, Ben looks for a ghost.

“Tell her we’ll meet at the Yavin 4 settlement in two day cycles,” Dameron replies curtly, and the person fades back into the hallway.

The pilot tries to get them back onto the same page of weaponry pile-ups, but Ben can only stare. He doesn’t mean to look accusatory, but the intensity of his gaze makes Dameron look down at the stack of paperwork on the table between them.

Dameron looks nervous. Almost shy, apologetic. “She appointed me. Before she...” 

That doesn’t surprise Ben. Leia always had her causes; sometimes they were ideologies, oftentimes they were people. It was how she mostly used her Force sensitivity: pick out the weakest of unfortunates and pull them up by their bootstraps.

Ben doesn’t do it on purpose. It’s become a reflex after so many years. He slips into Dameron’s memory, and he doesn’t have to search long to see her.

In Dameron’s mind, Leia is always bathed in light. The memories flit around too fast to grab onto one, but Ben desperately chases after them. The sight of his mother sends a splinter through his heart, and he’s suddenly a little boy again, chasing her robes as she leaves for another business trip.

He sees Leia glance knowingly at Dameron on Kijimi, muttering “ _If you really think that, then the war is already lost.”_

He sees her walk through the streets of Coruscant, with Dameron at her side, always, only a few paces behind.

He sees Leia slap Dameron across the cheek on a non-descript ship in space, _“You’re demoted.”_

That makes Ben smile.

“That’s how she showed love,” He doesn’t realize he’s spoken, or the fact that he has seemingly rendered Dameron incapable of it, until the words have already left his mouth. “And annoyance. And frustration. And...really, maybe she just had a temper—”

Suddenly, he is dumped out of Dameron’s memory. Papers are thrown in his face, wildly strewn across the break room. 

Dameron is standing now, making Ben crane his neck to look up at him. The act makes him feel foolish and young, like a child caught in the midst of bad behavior.

The new general is breathing a little harder now, and while his eyes are on fire, his voice is ice, “Stay out of my _fucking head_.”

Ben doesn’t have a chance to apologize. Dameron leaves, and he watches him go.

No one else visits him that day, or the next. Ben tries to meditate, but he finds himself still searching for Rey, desperate for a friend to confide in.

 **I’m not good at this,** Ben whispers, and he imagines the words landing in the shell of her ear.

He doesn’t tell her what happened. She seems to already know.

 **I can teach you,** she whispers back. 

Ben doesn’t try to keep the conversation going. He can tell the mind-meld is broken. She’s already gone.

:: - ::

Rey returns a hero.

“The Falcon’s back!” A resistance crew member cries from somewhere near his quarter, and people clash into each other like waves, desperate to see her. By this point, Ben is strong enough to walk again, but his gait is slow. He is at the end of the crowd when Rey steps off of the ship to collapse into Finn’s arms. Poe Dameron slaps her on the back, more reserved, but his smile is wider than Ben has ever seen it.

Jealousy shamelessly licks at his core. She stands there in the arms of her friends, and Ben stands alone. He wonders if her arrival has always caused such a stir. He wonders who else she clung to after she stepped off of the ship, how many of her friends have died because of him.

Inexplicably, her gaze splinters through the crowd and Ben catches it. Her eyes, in his memory so soft and shy, are wide, consuming, and Ben feels himself withering under it. He watches Rey murmur a quick word to her friends and push her way through the crowd. At the veracity of her movement, Ben almost expects her to crash into him. But she doesn’t. 

She stops just a few feet away from him, but her presence is still suffocating. It makes Ben itch, wanting to pull at the cuffs of his sleeves and fix his hair.

“Solo,” she greets evenly.

He nods in return, “Scavenger.”

Their neutral expressions break, and suddenly Rey is smiling into his shoulder. It’s the first kindness he has received since he awoken, and he knows he doesn’t deserve it, but he shudders at the gesture. It’s like his body has been suspended in a rubber band all this time, and it finally snaps under the pressure of her arms around him. 

They embrace one another like brothers in arms, and if her hand around his neck lingers a little before they move apart, Ben is sure he is just imagining it.

“Are you alright?” she asks at the same time he demands, “Where have you been?”

“Tracking stake-holders in First Order technology,” she answers at the same time he responds, “I’m fine. Just a little sore.”

It’s as if they can only talk at once, like they share the same breath. Ben wants to put a palm to her chest, wondering if the pulse too will match his.

Ben had so much to say to her once they had time to say it. He can’t remember any of it now, so he just stands awkwardly, waiting for her to take the lead. He’s always depended on another’s footsteps to show him the way. It was how Palpatine was able to have such a tight hold on him; Kylo Ren was a lost boy, and he was so desperate for a guiding hand. But with Rey, everything is different. At least Ben knows now that when he follows her, he is stepping in the right direction.

Rey opens her mouth to say something, but a hand at her elbow takes her attention. 

“Sorry to interrupt, but we need to debrief,” Dameron says, not even bothering to cast a glance in Ben’s direction. 

Rey’s face tightens, but she nods. Being a hero requires a small set of sacrifices, time being one of the most popular.

“Of course,” she says and glances at Ben, voice low. “I’ll see you at the dining hall, yeah?”

She’s pulled away before he can respond. Rey is like lightning, brief bolts of bright energy with a cold, painful aftermath. 

_Come home,_ they kept telling Ben—Han, Leia, Rey. But this is _their_ home, and Ben is just a stranger outside on the porch, looking through a window pane.

That night, Rey haunts the doorway of his quarters. Someone must have told her where he’d been resting, but he can’t imagine Finn or Dameron handing over the information. They still don’t trust him, and why would they? He still has the face of their enemy.

“You didn’t take me on the invitation,” Rey points out. She looks confused, and a little hurt.

Ben takes another bite of his sandwich, responding stiffly, “Too many stares.”

It’s almost like she forgets who he used to be. Rey nods in realization, but when she should probably step back into the hall, she steps into his room, the door clicking shut behind her. Ben becomes even more hyper aware of the space between them. She shortens the distance even more, her moves languid. It’s still odd for her to appear so relaxed with him. It almost feels like a trick, like a dream too good to be true.

“Well, ‘suppose you can’t blame them,” she points out. “But they’ll all adjust. When they get to know the real you.”

“You’re very optimistic,” he accuses, and when she brightens, he quickly adds wryly. “That’s not a compliment.”

“Sounds like it is,” she retorts, collapsing right beside him—on his _bed,_ he realizes with a start. They sit cross-legged on the mattress, their knees brushing against one another.

Rey seems just as lost for words as he is. It’s so strange—when they were enemies, they had so much to say. Threats to surrender. Pleads of persuasion. But now, they are just two kids, fumbling in the dark.

So he talks about Leia. 

“She would cut my sandwiches up until I was sixteen,” he tells her, tracing circles into the bread. “Diagonal. No crust.”

Rey blanches, “But the crust is the best part.”

His head is on a swivel, “Oh god, you’re one of _those_.”

And then, talking comes easy. They talk about meaningless things—favorite childhood meals, which system has the best bone broth, how they got their first scars.

“I was pulling at the wires of the Falcon,” he tells her, pulling his sleeve up to show the ghostly white splattering on his forearm. “I was, like, three. I wasn’t even supposed to be back there. Mom was so mad at Dad. I think he _slept_ in the Falcon for a week.”

“His name was Hydrak,” she said at her turn, pulling her garbs down to show only a fine line of her upper thigh. “Typical desert rat stuff. I had food, and he didn’t.”

“You were a child, then.” Ben says, and she nods. His brow furrows, “How’d you make it out against him?”

“Just a battle of wits,” she says vaguely, and then adds with a smirk. “And jaws.” At Ben’s puzzlement, she shrugs, explaining, “He bit me, so I bit him.”

Ben tries to imagine Rey, no taller than his knee, with her teeth sunk into the flesh of a grown Twi’lek. He chuckles in disbelief, “Good girl.” The words were an accidental tumble from his lips, and they stain Rey’s cheeks red. It makes Ben sober up a little bit, enough to think about the implications of a girl in his room at this hour of the night.

What is Rey still doing here? Ben can’t bring himself to tear his gaze from her face, but he knows they must have been talking for hours now. Did she really just want to hear his opinion on greeting customs in Coruscant? No, he has to be more useful than that. 

“Tell me about the stake-holders,” Ben says, and the abrupt change of conversation seems to give Rey whiplash. “Maybe I can help.”

She tells him about the journey to the Core Worlds, the heist into a politician's house that inevitably turned into a battle when she was discovered. But she doesn’t tell the story like Dameron would. She’s not giving Ben exact details, peddling for more insight from him. She frames it like an adventure epic, one told amongst celebratory drinks with friends. 

She’s a great storyteller. Ben becomes so lost in her words that he almost misses the quiver in her lip.

“They asked what to _do_ with you,” Now she’s talking about the debriefing meeting. “Like you’re a thing. Not a person. Not a _hero_.”

“That’s because I’m not, Rey,” he replies softly. She turns to look at him, like the truth is a betrayal of trust. 

“We wouldn’t have won the war without you.”

“There wouldn’t have been a war without me.”

“Is that all you’ve been doing since I’ve been gone?” she scoffs. “Wallowing in self-pity?”

“Pretty much,” he admits with a shrug. She rolls her eyes, but humor tugs at one end of her mouth. 

“What did you do?” He wants to hear more stories. He wants to watch the rise in her chest and the fire in her eyes and the movement of her lips.

But she doesn’t spin a long-winded tale. Instead, her gaze on him turns soft. Ben feels the rough calluses of her fingertips skim over his hand.

“I thought about you,” she whispers. **_Do you remember?_ ** The voice inside his mind is pleading and it is not his own. 

“Of course,” he answers out loud. **_It’s all that I dream about._ **

Like before, she makes the first move. She brings a hand to his face, brushing a strand under his ear.

“You need to get this cut,” she says.

Ben’s voice is strangled, “I’ve lost my barber.”

Their first kiss was desperate, like they thought it to be the last and only time. This kiss is no less demanding as Rey smashes their lips together. Her mouth is warm, like she is _made_ from light rather than blood, and he chases after it like a boy lost in the dark. 

It’s messy. Their teeth clack together a few times. Once, Ben’s nose smacks into Rey’s eye. Their hands keep getting snagged on the impossible layers of clothing each have on. Ben laughs into Rey’s collarbone, which earns him a sharp thump from her knuckles on the back of his head.

“Stop it,” she scolds, and Ben can’t see her face, but she almost sounds like she’s _pouting_ . “I’m not being funny. I’m being _sexy_ . I’m being _spontaneous_.”

“Trust me, Rey,” head bowed, his mouth lowers to her chest. “You are.”

Everything about Rey right now is adrenaline. Her breath is so hard, it shudders from her lips. Her hips rock with speed and precision. Her mouth moves rapidly, claiming every inch of his skin that it can land on. Ben tries to still her by pressing her down into the mattress, covering her body with his own.

 _We have time,_ he wants to assure her. But that might be a lie, so he doesn’t say it with his mouth. He says it with his hands. His hands flutter against her ribcage and tease the waistband on her canting hips. They dip down, only to discover a wetness. He lets out a soft noise in surprise.

“ _Ben_ ,” she says, and he is Ben. Ben is all he will ever be, just so long as she wishes it.

The next morning, the Resistance gets a summons transmission for Kylo Ren from Akiva. And Ralltiir. And Mygeeto.

They all wish for his trial. And his death.

:: - ::

“This is unbelievable,” Rey yells, and it’s not fair that Dameron has to be the one to face her anger. He’s not the one who delivered Ben’s death sentence. “They can’t do this. They don’t have the right.”

The Resistance has received dozens of more transmissions, all wishing for Ben’s immediate execution for war crimes. 

“He’s changed, Poe,” Rey tells him. “The darkness has left his heart. He’s an example of all we can accomplish. _Mercy_ , not punishment, changes a Sith. It’s how we can stop the retractors.”

Surprising both Ben and Dameron, Finn speaks up, echoing, “Nothing will be solved with more death. You think it will scare the other Sith into turning themselves in? They’ll see Kylo Ren as a martyr—and they would be right.” Finn’s words are wise, resolute. “If we kill him, we’re not better than the Final Order, _or_ the Empire.”

“You think I want this?” Dameron suddenly explodes after minutes of aching silence. The war is over, but Dameron has never looked older. Ben can a streak of gray hair forming at his temples.

“I’m doing this so he can stand under a fair group of mediators,” Dameron says. “You think Malastare will give him a chance to prove himself? Or Ralltiir? If the Resistance didn’t offer to host the trial, then Ren would already be dead.”

“Ben,” he corrects. All three of them look up, as if so consumed by their usual dynamic, they’d forgotten he’d been there.

“And it’s okay,” he continues. The aftertaste of death has always lingered on his tongue, ever since Exogol. It’s time he takes another drink. “This is how it’s always had to be.”

:: - ::

“You are a _moron_.”

“I know.”

“A self-absorbed, death-defying, crust-hating _moron_ ,” Rey’s words are unsteady and wet, just like her gaze. 

“I know,” he repeats.

Dameron and Finn have given them privacy so that Rey can hurdle insults at him and beat his chest with her tiny fists. _How considerate,_ he thinks dryly. She’s looking wildly around the room now, probably for something to throw at his head. Eventually, her gaze lands on the escape pods.

She swallows hard and turns back to him, “We can run away.”

“The whole galaxy knows my face,” he reminds her. “And yours.”

“That’s where the running part comes in,” she jokes woodenly. Her anger has deflated into disbelief and heartache. Ben closes the gap between them, and it’s so seamless, how she falls into his chest and wraps her arms around his neck.

“I just got you,” she whispers. “Why would you want me to give you away?”

Despite what she may think, Ben doesn’t have all the answers. So he just holds her, like he may never get to again.

:: - ::

The trial begins a week later. Ben doesn’t recognize any of the Council’s faces, save for Dameron. He’s ashamed at that fact. He has probably taken so much from them, and they are just faces in a crowd.

“We will judge you on the charges of murder, espionage, terrorism, and high treason,” Councilman Aftab says. As soon as he speaks, Ben remembers him. They played together as children while Ackbar and Leia talked quietly about senate hearings in the other room.

“Kylo Ren, please have a seat,” Aftab gestures to the chair to the side, and when Ben takes it, all rise. 

Aftab pounds a gavel. It makes Ben wince. 

“The trial begins.”

:: - ::

Royalty from Rodia. Shipyard workers from Ganthel. Peasant families from Corellia. 

They are all different in size and stature, language and class. But they have an invisible line that ties them together: trauma, at the hands of Kylo Ren. They hail from villages that he destroyed. They are haunted by ghosts he made.

While they each tell their story, Ben sits and listens. He makes notes, ideas of reparations that will never stitch up the hole but may make life a little easier to bear. At the end of each of their testimonies, Aftab turns the floor to Ben. He’s supposed to cross-examine the witness, give more context to their stories, make himself look less like a ghoul.

Instead he looks at each of the survivors and says, clear and sincere, “I am so sorry.”

He doesn’t put up a defense. He has none.

But there are other witnesses, too. Rey. Finn. Maz. Chewie. They don’t talk about Kylo Ren; they only speak of Ben Solo. 

Rey tells the Council about the battle of Exogol. Finn tells the Council about Ben in the medbay, giving countless hours of information. Maz tells the Council about Leia’s sacrifices, what his death would mean to her legacy. Chewie tells the Council about a goofy-grinned six-year-old, squirming in his seat as his mother cut his hair.

Rey visits him the night before the trial’s end. She’s kept away throughout the entire process; she doesn’t want the Council to feel as though she’s biased, Rey told him.

 ** _You have to give your voice,_ ** she says into the shell of his ear, and while she is not there in body, she is in spirit. **_If not for yourself, for those that need closure. They need to know that Kylo Ren is dead._**

“Don’t stake so much on me,” he begs into the darkness. “I’ll disappoint you.”

He feels a smile against his skin, warm and patient. **_No, you won’t._ **

:: - ::

“Kylo Ren was a monster,” Ben wishes he could be as small as his voice right now, but he can’t. So he stands with his shoulders back and head straight. He needs to face judgement like a man, not a sniveling boy caught in the shadows.

“He took lives without care. He betrayed his family. He allowed the dark side of the force to seduce him. He didn’t just surrender to it; he _embraced_ it,” Ben continues. Dozens of eyes are on him. The pressure almost makes him fold, but he feels Rey’s gaze on him, giving him strength.

“But I am not that man anymore. My word is as good as squalor, but _theirs_ ,” he gestures to Rey, Finn, Maz, and Chewbacca, “is the highest praise a man can receive. I truly don’t deserve it— _any_ of it.

“What I deserve is death,” he admits. “But the galaxy deserves peace. I will strive to make that dream a reality. Please, let me correct my errors by my deeds, not by my blood.”

From the raised table, Ben can almost swear he sees a smile flicker on Dameron’s face. 

Satisfied, the Council breaks to convene. The judgement is soon returned. 

:: - ::

_Exile._

Ben is to live out the rest of his life on Dathomir, an abandoned planet in the Quelli sector.

Councilman Aftab smiles at him, too kind for all of the trauma he has endured, “Welcome home, Ben Solo.”

:: - :: 

“You’ll need to file a daily report at nightfall so that the Council can keep track of your movements,” Rey tells him, gesturing to the comm towards the door. 

The hut is so small, it makes him feel like a giant. He has to make sure he doesn’t crane his neck too far or else he’ll crack his head on the ceiling. But it is clean and it is serviceable, and it is a bigger kindness than he deserves.

After the trial, Rey reamed him out for the _“what I deserve is death”_ line for about two hours. And then they made out for three. Suffice it to say, it was a weird day.

As Rey shows him all of the outposts of this world—where to get fish, how to call for help, how to set up a Dejarik board—Ben feels a pang growing in his gut.

She has to leave soon. She is the galaxy’s last Jedi, protector of worlds from dangers still on the surface. Besides, even if she could stay here, Ben does not deserve her. 

But as night soon approaches, Ben cannot help but grow bleak and bitter. 

Finally, after scowling into his plate so hard during dinnertime, Rey finally says, “For someone who was begging for death earlier, you sure can’t stand a little bit of swamp.”

Ben blinks up at her, “The planet is fine. I just…” Talking about his feelings is hard. Turns out he did inherit something from his father, after all. 

“I’ll miss you,” he finally chokes out. “You were...a kindness, in my life. When all I knew was hatred. You showed me things—”

“This is sounding like a break-up speech,” Rey cuts him, like always. “Are you really breaking up with me over _acid-beet salad_?”

“I—” He shakes his head. She makes him lose his train of thought too easily and too frequently for it to be cute anymore. “I don’t know how long-distance works with our dyad bond, but of course we can try that. But I’m talking about _us_ , in the flesh.” He can’t explain it. She just stares at him. Finally, her eyes light up.

“Oh, I didn’t tell you?” 

Ben just stares blankly.

She smirks down into her salad, saying, “Thought I’d go for a holiday,” When he doesn’t get it, she continues, “I heard Dathomir is pretty good this time of year.”

“Rey, that’s—” _Amazing. Unbelievable. You’ve changed my life, you stupid scavenger girl. I want to kiss every freckle on your face and every callus on your hand._ “Great,” he finishes lamely. 

He’s not good at words. Rey’s smirk breaks into a toothy grin. She knows. 

“I think I’ll be going on a lot of holidays,” she continues airily, shurgging. “Poe’s idea. He says I work too much.”

“Coming from _him_?”

“That’s what I said!”

Easy conversation at the dining table. A warm fire in the living room. A beautiful girl in his bed. 

Ben doesn’t deserve a happy ending, but he gets one anyway.

:: - ::

“My father won this planet in a card game once,” Ben informs her. They’re tangled in a hammock, bodies melted into one another. The splintering sun is high in the sky, and they had just finished a sparring match that ended with Ben on his back and Rey mounted on top of him. The memory makes him feel shy, so he tries to make more conversation.

“He lost it soon after,” he says. “Something about swamp witches or whatever.” At his words, Rey’s eyebrow arches, but he shrugs. He doesn’t remember the story good enough to share it.

“You’re such a master storyteller,” she teases.

“Why would I need to be?” He squeezes her waist, still disbelieving that he has the permission to do so.“I have you.”

“Yeah,” she agrees softly. “You have me.”

The galaxy is still in turmoil. Rey tells Ben about it after she returns from her missions. But on this planet, they only know peace.

Rey has a crinkle between her eyebrows. He taps her temple, “What are you thinking so hard about?”

Instead of telling him, she shows him. 

It is the two of them on a beach, pruned and sunburnt. It’s the same ocean from her dreams, when she was still a lost girl on Jakku. They are calling after two small figures ( _children,_ Ben realizes with a not-unpleasant jolt) on the horizon.

“I see it,” he buries his face into her hair, tasting sea salt. “I see the island.”

:: - ::

“Stop squirming,” she pinches the spot where his neck meets his shoulder blade. “I’m going to take your head off.”

“On accident, right?” He says as he feels hands and metal tangle in his hair.

The girl with the shears is eerily silent.

“ _Rey._ ”

“Yes, yes, accident, of course,” she assures, adding in a murmur. “As far as they will be able to prove.”

Ben spots a figure in the distance. He almost calls out to Rey, alarmed, but then the figure comes more into focus.

Leia appears in blue static, mystical and wise, and she is smiling.

Ben heeds his mother’s silent warning. He tries to sit still.

**Author's Note:**

> I worked really hard on this, so comments and kudos would be appreciated.


End file.
